Ruut Veenhoven
In: Luigino Bruni and Pier Luigi Porta (Eds.), Handbook of research methods and applications on happiness and quality of life, Chapter 14, pp. 309-333, Edward Elgar, Cheltenhan, UK, 2015, ISBN 978 1 78347 117 1 (eBook)
ABSTRACT
The terms 'quality-of-life and 'happiness' denote different meanings; sometimes they are used as an umbrella term for all of value, and the other times to denote special merits. This chapter is about the specific meanings of the terms. I distinguish four qualities of life, one of which is subjective appreciation with life. Next I distinguish four kinds of appreciation, one of which is 'happiness' in the limited sense of the word. On the basis of this conceptual differentiation I inspect what is measured by some current measures of quality of life. I discuss several weaknesses of these measures and show that quality of life cannot be measured comprehensively. The most comprehensive measure of quality of life is how long and happy people live and that is well measurable.